


Reasons

by Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch



Series: 3 Days Timeline [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, pre-dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 21:11:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14340990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch/pseuds/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch
Summary: Nico offers to help Will out and Will gives him an unexpected task in response.





	Reasons

“ _You_ want to do some of _my_ chores?” Will demanded.

Nico didn’t think he needed to sound quite so disbelieving.

“Yeah, sure,” Nico said with a slight shrug.

“Why?”

Nico made the mistake of meeting Will’s eyes for a split second. They were just as blue as ever. Distantly there was a crash and Will half turned with a slight frown, which was good because it meant that Will didn’t see the flush of colour that definitely wasn’t tinting Nico’s cheeks.

“Leave it!” he yelled for the benefit of whoever was currently on duty with him.

There was a second, slightly smaller sound that was nonetheless still definable as a crash.

Will closed his eyes.  

“Okay,” he said, apparently forgetting Nico hadn’t explained himself, which was fine by Nico because he didn’t quite know how to explain it himself.

“Okay,” Will said again with more intent this time. “I know exactly what you can do.”

He’d thought Will might ask him to itemise the remaining medicine, or fetch supplies or just generally tidy. Having the Romans around after the battle had been useful for many reasons but Nico had noticed Will’s small sigh of relief when they’d left his infirmary.

(Will insisted he wasn’t a control freak and how would Nico feel if he was reaching for a bandage and found a bottle of ambrosia instead?)

Will did not ask him to itemise, or fetch or tidy. He asked Nico to help contribute to the brand-new Camp Halfblood guide book. He thought writing and creating stuff was supposed to be one of the Apollo kid’s strengths, and quite frankly this didn’t seem like helping out a friend and seemed more like a cruel and unusual punishment.

Still he’d offered, and Will’s eyes were sparkling.

“It’s only a list of the five best things about camp,” Will said. “That’ll be easy right? I’d do it but I’ve got all this –“ he gestured around the infirmary. As if to illustrate his point a box labelled bandages fell off a shelf spilling a pipet, a box of plasters and a three and a half packets of m&ms.

_List of things that are good about camp by Nico Di Angelo in place of Will Solace because Will Solace is lazy._

  1. _….._
  2. _~~Uh~~_
  3. _~~Stuff?~~_



Nico was wandering around camp with a grumpy demeanour and a tentative hope that inspiration might leap out at him from behind a bush somewhere.  It didn’t happen. It would probably happen to an Apollo kid.

Kayla was sitting on top of the climbing wall, shooting arrows into various clothing from the Hermes cabin, strung from the trees.  She noticed Nico watching her and winked.

“Target practice,” she said.  

He wasn’t sure exactly what had prompted the latest retaliation in the mostly harmless prank war between the Apollo and Hermes cabins. It _was_ nice to be included in the joke. Although maybe he’d regret thinking that if he found hair dye in his shampoo, or spiders in his bed.

  1. _Interesting activities_



*

 “Sit with us.”

Nico didn’t respond because he didn’t actually register Will was talking to him.

“He-ey! Earth to Death Boy!”

Only one person called him Death Boy; he still had enough power in his glares to stop the nickname catching on. It was just that Solace was somehow immune. Maybe he had shots that allowed him to build up resistance to things like the disapproval of people who could strangle him with a shadow if he kept it up.

Nico turned to glare at him anyway because there was something to be said for consistency and then faltered when he registered what Will had said.

“Huh?”

It wasn’t the most eloquent response he’d ever formulated.

“Come sit with us. Now that the Romans are gone I’m missing not having elbow room. Besides you’re always on your own?”

It sounded like a question.

“Chiron won’t-“ Nico tried but Will was irrepressible and just gave him a startlingly bright grin.

“I’ll write you a note,” he said.

 

  1. _Good food._



*

Will turned up in the Hades doorway one night just before curfew and stuck his head in.

“It’s so dark in here,” he commented.

It was. Whoever had designed the Hades cabin had assumed that the Hades children would probably find a gloomy atmosphere comforting.

…they weren’t wrong.

“It’s okay,” Nico said.   

Will smiled. It was practically enough to light the space around him, making Nico’s gloomy cabin a little less gloomy for a moment.

“I brought a blanket,” Will said. “I’m not convinced that all this black marble is warm.”

“I think it’s obsidian.”

“Either way you’ve just got out of the infirmary and I’m not having you back in there cluttering it up while I’m trying to tidy.”

He pushed the blanket into Nico’s arms, apparently not interested in listening to objections or taking no for an answer.

“Stay warm!” he called as he left.

Nico was left holding a blanket and feeling like something else had just happened simultaneously with Will passing him a blanket. He almost shoved it into a cupboard but instead shook it out. It was red and green tartan. It was soft. It somehow made it’s way onto his bed.

He wasn’t cold that night.

 

  1. _Nice accommodation_



*

 

Cecil yelled that Nico was cheating as Nico shadowed travelled into existence behind him and shoved him into a concealed net trap Annabeth had built. Nico just smirked, which quickly faltered when a rope of light twisted itself around his ankles and tripped him up.

He turned and saw Will grinning at him.

He scrambled to his feet but Will was already running towards the flag.

“No shadow travel!” Will yelled as he ran.

“Yeah right,” Nico muttered. He let himself melt away and came back into existence far further away from the target than he’d meant and far closer to Will than he’d meant. Will crashed straight into him as Nico stumbled and fell to the floor. Will couldn’t get to his feet quick enough, and Nico didn’t think he’d be able to get up if he tried and damn it he hated it when Will was right – he got so self-satisfied.

Connor reached the flag and ran off with it, out of the clutches of Annabeth’s carefully crafted defences.

Nico tried to stand to stop him, but wobbled and fell down again.

“Told you so,” Will said but he did offer a hand to help Nico up.

 

  1. _Group games._



*

Nico threw himself down at his table with his breakfast tray and set about not eating any of it. He’d been too tired to properly wake and even now it was a struggle to keep his eyes open. Pretty much everyone else had eaten already and had either cleared off or were clearing away their things. The Apollo kids were the largest group left: still sat in a huddle, Will in the middle of them laughing at something one of his siblings said.

Jason was leaving but he waved to Nico as he went. His glasses were slightly crooked again. Before that could annoy Nico too much Piper and Annabeth appeared, and Piper immediately straightened them grinning at Nico in a conspiratorial way as she did so.

“Capture the flag meeting later!”  Annabeth called. “I’m not going to lose again.”

Her grey eyes were slightly terrifying, and Nico believed her.

A paper aeroplane landed dangerously close to his toast. He looked up. Will was grinning at him. Nico frowned and unfolded the aeroplane and found Will’s scrawl in the middle.

_You owe me a list of five things._

Nico looked up again.

“Come sit with us!” Austin called.

Kayla beckoned him over. Lou Ellen – who had insinuated herself into the middle of their ground – wriggled her fingers at him in a mystical way that Nico assumed was either a greeting, or a threat to curse him if he didn’t get over there.

“Five things!” Will yelled.

Nico sighed and trudged over to their table.

“You wouldn’t shut up otherwise,” he told them.

  1. _…the chance to make friends._



_*_

“Here,” Nico said.

Will put down a box he was holding to take the scrap of paper Nico was holding out to him. He opened it up as Nico headed out.

“They sound like five reasons to stay,” Will commented innocently as Nico neared the door.

Nico shrugged.

“I don’t need five reasons to stay,” he told Will.

He hadn’t needed five reasons to stay; he already had one.

**Author's Note:**

> Will is a little s**t who 100% knew what he was doing. Nico is sappy and doesn't know it.
> 
> (for anyone waiting for I Love You, You Pay My Rent - it is done, like in its entirety. ((I had writers block and then a period of very variable internet and not much else to do which made it perfect to write the rest of the story.)) I have some minor edits to make but from Saturday there'll be a chapter a week again.)


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